Friday, August 29, 2014

Three previously unreported overflows add to total from Aug. 12 rainstorm

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2014-08-22/features/bs-md-sewage-20140822_1_overflows-sewage-jones-fallsBaltimore city officials belatedly disclosed Friday that sewage overflows topped 12 million gallons during last week's downpour, four times what had previously been acknowledged. It was the most untreated waste reported spilled in the city in a single day since 2006, according to state records.

At first glance, the pizza-size hole that popped open when a heavy truck passed over a freshly paved District street seemed fairly minor.

Then city inspectors got on their bellies with a flashlight to peer into it. What they discovered has become far too common. A massive 19th-century brick sewer had silently eroded away, leaving a cavern beneath a street in Adams Morgan that could have swallowed most of a Metro bus.

It took three weeks and about a million dollars to repair the sewer, which was built in 1889.

If it were not buried underground, the water and sewer system that serves the nation’s capital could be an advertisement for Band-Aids. And it is not much different from any other major system in the country, including those in many suburbs and in cities less than half as old as Washington.

Although they are out of sight and out of mind except when they spring a leak, water and sewer systems are more vital to civilized society than any other aspect of infrastructure.

Rapidly deteriorating roads and bridges may stifle America’s economy and turn transportation headaches into nightmares, but if the nation’s water and sewer systems begin to fail, life as we know it will too. Without an ample supply of water, people don’t drink, toilets don’t flush, factories don’t operate, offices shut down and fires go unchecked. When sewage systems fail, cities can’t function and epidemics break out.

“All the big cities have these problems, and to me it’s the unseen catastrophe,” Hawkins said. “My humble view is that the industry we’re in is the bedrock of civilization because it’s not just an infrastructure that is a convenience, that allows you to get to work faster or slower. At least with bridges or a road, people have some idea of what it is because they drive on them and see them. ”

And just like roads and bridges, the vast majority of the country’s water systems are in urgent need of repair and replacement. At a Senate hearing last month, it was estimated that, on average, 25 percent of drinking water leaks from water system pipes before reaching the faucet. The same committee was told it will take $335 billion to resurrect water systems and $300 billion to fix sewer systems.

There is no better illustration of the looming national crisis than the District’s system. The average D.C. water pipe is 77 years old, but a great many were laid in the 19th century. Sewers are even older. Most should have been replaced decades ago.

Why is it that if a boater discharges treated waste it is referred to as "dumping" but when a municipality discharges raw waste it's called a "spill"? Isn't a spill something that happens at a grocery store in isle 6 and is cleaned up with paper towels?

The great farce of NDZ

It is already illegal for vessels of any type to discharge raw sewage (unless offshore -ocean- by 3 or more miles) into US waterways. The only parties who get away with dumping raw sewage are municipalities who's waste treatment systems overflow or malfunction (some at an alarmingly regular rate, like every time it rains). What's at stake here are on-board treatment systems. Systems that output treated waste that is many, many times cleaner than what a waste treatment plant discharges. In the words of the Maryland Attorney General's office; on-board treatment systems account for less than .1% of any water quality issues (actually, less than .003% to be exact)! Yet, supporters of NDZ legislation want to criminalize their use.